


two is not enough

by interstellarbeams



Category: New Girl
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Best Friends, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Knitting, Male-Female Friendship, Pep Talk(s), Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-27
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2020-10-29 11:08:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20795660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/interstellarbeams/pseuds/interstellarbeams
Summary: Jess is furiously knitting on the couch and Nick can tell that something is wrong.





	two is not enough

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta’d cause my beta is currently stressed out and doesn’t need my mess.
> 
> I started a rewatch recently of New Girl and I’ve never written anything for the show so I hope this is satisfying enough.
> 
> I’m not sure where or if it even fits in canon so this is canon divergence, I guess. 
> 
> Kudos and comments are appreciated! <3

_somehow you can see me  
i never showed you how_

Nick sighed, cracking his knuckles over top of his keyboard but the nervous tick didn’t help with his productivity. 

The blinking cursor at the top of the screen taunted him with its constant activity, a reminder that he had yet to type a single word today despite the obscene amount of time he had been sitting at the desk, staring at the screen. His butt had gone numb hours ago, from inactivity and the hard, wooden seat of the rickety chair that he had found tossed into the dumpster behind the apartment complex… maybe the trash was where it belonged. 

He touched his finger to the mouse and moved the arrow to the top of the screen but the check of his word count left him even more disheartened than he had been when the cursor mocked him.

He pushed the chair back, the legs screeching against the floor with a sound not unlike nails on a chalkboard and he struggled not to give into his urge to yank it up and toss it out the window along with all his frustration _and_ the manuscript for his next book. 

He crossed the room and snatched his bedroom door open instead before walking the few short steps down the hallway and into the open-air living room of the loft, hoping a beer or two, would help him to relax and then the words would flow out like they were supposed to.

He came up short when he noticed Jess sitting on the couch, frantically mumbling under her breath, knitting needles flying so fast he was surprised they didn’t up and speed around the room like two angry, buzzing bees. 

Yellow yarn trailed across her black shorts and a skein of it rested on top of her foot, her cat-faced flats peeking out from underneath like a kitten at play. A green strand, as bright as one of the glass bottles that rested on the shelves behind the bar at _The Griffin_, trailed from the ends of her hair and he found the sight endearing and slightly alarming. 

“Things getting a little wild with the yarn there, Jess?”

“Yes, _no!_ I don’t know.” Jess pushed her dark-rimmed glasses up with the back of her hand, her fingers still wrapped around the end of one knitting needle. 

She blew out a harsh breath, lifting the fringe of dark brown hair above her eyebrows and revealing the not-often-seen, smooth skin of her forehead to his view. 

The mess of yarn that spilled out of the normally tidy basket, that sat next to her on the cracked leather of the sectional, was as frenetic as the movements of her needles as she went back to well, whatever it was that she was working on. It looked like the lopsided end of one of those fancy tilted hats that the French wore — barrette? _beret?_ — to him. 

“Is everything alright?” He asked, as he moved the basket to the floor, yarn strands pouring out of the top like an overflowing bowl of spaghetti, and sat down next to her. 

“Fine.” She gritted out through tightly compressed lips, so different from the warm, easy smiles that usually lifted her lips as she enjoyed one of her favorite creative hobbies. 

Her bright blue eyes begged him to let it go, but he couldn’t just leave her to deal with whatever _this_ was. He decided to change the topic and come back to the other later when she wasn’t clutching the needles so tight that her knuckles whitened. 

“Whatcha makin’?” He decided on, forgetting all about his own earlier frustration with his writing, now that he had something else to focus on.

She stopped the fast movements of her knitting for just long enough to pull a green and red _something_ from beside her on the couch and offered it to him.

Nick held it up but he had no idea what side was up and what side was down, or if it even had sides but Jess didn’t offer any instructions or explanation as she continued to mumble under her breath. 

The green and red was interspersed with a little bit of yellow that looked like stars or maybe it was snowflakes, and he had to wonder why Jess was working so quickly to finish _whatever it was_ for Christmas when the hot, July sun beat down outside on the asphalt calling to mind the cool shimmers of chlorine pools and the slapping sound of flip flops, not soft snowfalls and jingle bells. Not that they ever saw snow in California, but his Illinois winters were always full of the white powdery stuff that melted on your coat and stuck to your eyelashes and chilled your fingers until they were red from the cold.

“It’s... nice.” He offered, dubiously, when she eyed him, another nearly completed knitted item resting between her two hands. 

“Oh, _just_, give it!” She snatched it from his hands and stood abruptly, trying to hold onto her knitting needles, her “projects” and hoist up the basket full of yarn all at once.

“Where are you going?” He asked, as he stood up and rested his hands on her arms that suddenly started trembling under his palms.

“Nowhere! I’m going nowhere, okay, Nick?” She spit out at him, and he moved so that he could see her face, the tears running down her cheeks glistening in the sunlight that shone through the windows.

“Here.” He took the knitting from her and dumped it into the basket, haphazardly before he drew her back down to sit on the couch. “Hey, it’ll be okay. Whatever happened. It’s okay. We’ll fix it.”

She sniffed hard, blue eyes rimmed by the smudge of dark mascara, but her gaze told him she didn’t believe him.

_Shit_, Nick thought to himself. He had rarely seen Jess so upset, except for when she had first moved into the loft and watched _Dirty Dancing_ twelve times a day, sobbing into her pile of crumpled up tissues. 

“Um…” He dragged out the sound, rubbing a hesitant hand across her back, long curls soft against his fingers as he tried to stall and give himself time to think. _If she didn’t want to talk about it, how could he help her?_

Suddenly an idea popped into his head, the fuzzy pajama sets that she insisted on wearing even in summer because they were comforting —_”They’re like being hugged by your favorite stuffed animal, Nick!”_ — always came with a hot cup of tea.

_Tea, he could do that right? He made drinks for a living after all. How hard could it be?_

“I’ll be right back.” He stood and scooted around her and the large coffee table as he tried not to step on her toes.

Jess sniffed again, her shoulders slumping as he walked behind her and towards the kitchen.

He tapped his fingers against the countertop as he stared at the numerous boxes that were stacked on the shelf, various colors and pictures of tea cups and wafting steam distracting him from his course of action. 

_Oolong, chai, assam, what the hell? Where’s the regular tea?_

He smoothed a hand across his chin before shrugging his shoulders and snatching the first box that he put his hand to from the shelf. He flipped the box over looking for instructions but after an intense search through the cabinets he didn’t see a kettle anywhere but he wouldn’t admit defeat.

He lifted a mug from the mug tree on the counter and filled it with water from the tap before sticking the mug in the microwave, set a time and hit the on button.

He watched the mug spin on the turntable, the hum of the microwave a vague background noise to the cacophony of his thoughts. _What was the matter with Jess? Why was she so down? Why was she knitting so much? How was he going to help her if she wouldn’t tell him what was wrong?_

If only he had Cece’s number he could pass off the responsibility to her but he didn’t so he would have to do his best.

The microwave beeped a warning and he popped open the door, almost dropping the cup to the countertop as his fingers met the burning ceramic. 

_Shit, three minutes might have been too long_, he thought, as he opened the tea bag and dropped it in.

The clear liquid turned a swirling brown and he debated on whether she wanted sugar — _Where the hell did they keep the sugar anyways?_ — or honey or whatever fancy syrups they used nowadays to sweeten hot drinks. Nick had no idea. He took his coffee black and the only sugar he wanted was the kind found in his favorite beer and the occasional cream-filled snack cake he picked up at the corner store.

The spice rack was next to the stove and he twirled it absentmindedly as he thought, his gaze landing on the bear-shaped squeeze bottle on the countertop. _Aha, honey it is._ He squeezed a few dollops in before stirring it and returning to the living room.

Jess sat where he had left her and a wave of relief flooded through him, but he still didn’t know how to get her to talk to him. At least she wasn’t so closed off that she wanted to run from him like she had done so many times before.

“There ya go,” He passed off the cup to her, handle first so that she wouldn’t burn her fingers and sat back down next to her.

He pressed his hands together, palms touching between his knees as he tried to think of what to say to get her to open up. Normally, Jess was as open as a book but this time she wasn’t trying to talk his ear off about how _he_ was feeling and how it was good to get stuff off of your chest. He was usually the one to leave the feelings talk to others all while pushing his own back into the dark recesses of his mind, like the boiler in the basement of his childhood home. 

Jessica Day was the holder of the feelings stick and he was usually the avoider who swept everything under the rug that was uncomfortable, touchy-feely or could open up his own vulnerabilities to others scrutiny, but she wasn’t like that. She would be there for him if he needed it so he wouldn’t let her be alone. He had to do this.

“Hey, kid? What’s eating ya?” He tried his best impersonation of Humphrey Bogart, knowing she loved all those old movies in black and white where the heroines always looked wide eyed at their hero and thought that he could do no wrong though typically that man was a mess. 

She wiped her tears with one hand, the other still wrapped around the handle of the mug that was covered in purple butterflies. 

“It’s this stupid vice principal position at Coolidge. No matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to do anything right.” She took a sip of tea, gulping hard and he looked over at her in alarm as she started to cough.

“Are you okay?” He asked, as he watched her already red-rimmed eyes water and her pink lips purse.

“I’m— Um, that’s good.” 

She coughed again and he reached over and started rubbing her back, bracing one hand around the cup so that she wouldn't spill it from the violence of her coughing. Schmidt would have a fit if he came home from his long day at work — _I’m busting my ass, Nicholas!_ — and had to scrub the rug because of him. God knows, Nick certainly wouldn’t be doing it. 

She wiped a hand across her mouth, an uncharacteristically lackadaisical move for her. She was normally so put together and mannerly. Nick cringed, hoping that his and the guys’ horrible manners hadn’t rubbed off on her. 

“I just—“ She dropped a hand into her lap, “I’m so tired of working so hard at my job, at relationships, at being the best daughter, teacher, friend… and all I get for it is crap.” 

“Come on. It can’t be that bad.” He pressed his palms to his knees to keep himself from reaching for her and risking breaking the impasse that they were currently in.

“It feels like it. My sunshine tanks are at an all time low. I don’t know how much longer I can take Foster’s weird passive aggressive tasks before I break. I think I should just give up.” 

“Hey, the Jessica Day I know, never gives up on anything.”

“_Well_, there was that one time in gym class, in the sixth grade, during rope climbing exercise. I couldn’t do it. I failed. My coach said that I had the tiny arms of a T-Rex. She reminds me a lot of Coach, actually. Lots of yelling.”

Nick shook his head at her, his lips lifting in an involuntary smile, the one that always showed up when she was around. Her eyes brightened and he swore that he wouldn’t let her doubt herself anymore. She was meant to smile, laugh and sing... tears and regrets were for saps like him who couldn’t get their shit together. 

She turned her head to stare down into her lap as he fished for the right words to say. 

“Hey. Look, Jess, you’re doing better than I am.” 

She jerked her head up sharply, narrowing her beautiful eyes through her glasses, as she stared at him.

“I mean, sure, I have the bar to run and I love it but this book,” He rubbed a hand across the back of his neck, “I’m just not getting anywhere with it. I don’t think it’s in the cards for me to be an author. But _you_, you’re meant to be a teacher and you’ll make an amazing vice principal. Only someone as caring, thoughtful and creative as you could help these kids. I don’t think you should give up on them or yourself, okay?” He reached across the gaping couch cushion to take her fingers into his before lightly squeezing them, her fingertips warm against his from the mug of tea. 

“_Nick_,” she drew out his name like she was prone to do, a look of concern clouding her eyes but this was about her and he wasn’t trying to make it about his own struggles, only to encourage her… maybe he should have gone about it a different way. 

He couldn’t take that soft look in her eyes, he didn’t deserve it.

He released her hand and turned his head, catching sight of a larger, dark blue project sticking out against the more vibrant colors of the other yarn skeins in her basket.

“What’s this?” He reached toward the basket, his interest piqued by the careful lay of the weave, so different from the haphazard, nubby mess of the “hats” that she had just been working on.

“_Nothing._” Jess hastily set her mug down on the coffee table cluttered with out of date _Cosmo_ magazines, homemade felt coasters and a poker chip caddy and tried to shove the basket out of reach with her foot but only succeeded in dumping it over, almost sending herself into the floor with it. 

“If it’s nothing, why are you so anxious to hide it?” He asked, allowing a small smile to curve the corner of his lips as he watched her brush her hair over her shoulder, nervously.

“It’s not finished.” She squeaked, hopping up off the couch to put herself in between him and the cornucopia of spilled yarn. 

Nick considered her for a moment. The bright blue of her scalloped neck top attempted to rival her eyes but it was no contest and her black, high-waisted shorts added length to her slim legs. She was no match for him in height, weight or agility but he should probably let her surprises, stay her surprises. 

He put out two placating hands and reclined back against the squishy couch cushions, watching as she bent to carefully pack the yarn back in its place, her movements careful and measured, unlike the ferocity with which she had knitted earlier. 

He didn’t know whether he had helped her or not but at least she wasn’t set to run off like _Sonic the Hedgehog_ because of a simple conversation between the two of them, never mind that it had nothing to do with their feelings for each other. 

She grunted as she hefted the basket up into her arms and he thought about offering to help but he didn’t want to hear another one of her feminist rants about how she could do it on her own. _I don’t need no man, Nick Miller._

He allowed his gaze to follow her as she walked the short distance to her room before he stood and made his way towards the fridge. He picked a beer bottle out of the door, hitting the edge against the countertop and popped off the cap with a practiced movement.

He turned to lean against the shining stainless steel doors, the bottle lifted to take a swig but was surprised to see Jess standing on the other side of the island. She held her mug between two hands but she stared at him, mouth agape and he had to wonder what was going on in that head of hers. _Had he done something wrong?_

“What is it?” He looked towards the sink and then to his other side toward Schmidt’s bedroom door. _Had he not heard the other man come in?_ But there wasn’t anyone there and nothing seemed out of place. 

“It’s nothing. I’m fine. You know except for what we were just talking about, I—“ He turned back towards her but she had her head ducked down, staring into her cup, “I’ll just… put this in the sink.” 

She stepped around the island and came closer, her movements quick and skittish as she set the mug into the sink with the clank of ceramic on stainless steel.

He set the beer bottle down and grasped her wrist quickly as she turned to move away. 

“Hey, it’s all gonna work out. I promise.” 

She looked up at him, eyes wide and she brushed a hand across her bangs before dropping it to straighten the edge of her shirt. _Why was she acting so weird? Well, weirder than normal._

“You believe me, don’t you? Just because I’m not gonna finish this book doesn’t mean that you won’t be offered the vice principalship. You’ve got the goods, girl.” He added a flirty edge to his words, feeling awkward about it but all this seriousness was obviously messing with his head. 

“I know. Thank you… for everything.” She smiled at him, softly, and he forgot all about the sweating beer bottle that rested near his elbow and all the anxiety about his unfinished book. 

The skin of her wrist, under his hand, was soft and smooth and he didn’t want to let it go but he also didn’t want to hold her hostage for the rest of her life so he released her. She turned her head at the sound of the front door opening and moved like she was going to leave, her movements surprisingly gangly, like the legs of a newborn giraffe he had seen at the zoo once.

He braced his hands against the countertop, a disappointed twinge in his chest and a sigh was on the verge of escaping, when she turned back around. 

She stepped up to him, pressing one hand against the top of his shoulder she moved in closer as his heart rate picked up exponentially. 

“You don’t give yourself enough credit.” She fairly whispered, before kissing his cheek, quickly. The pillow-soft touch was barely there but he felt it down to his toes, shooting out to his fingers like heat lightning crackling across the sky. Her sweet, slightly spicy vanilla scent wrapping around him like the scent trails in _Tom & Jerry_ cartoons that he used to watch on Saturday mornings, before she was pulling away and leaving the room. Her faint ‘_welcome home_’ greeting towards Winston fading in his ears as he relived the touch of her lips. 

“Hey man, what’s up?” Winston called as he opened the fridge next to him, the glass bottles and jars inside clanking against each other as he pulled out a beer of his own.

“Are you gonna drink that?” He asked as he settled onto a stool on the other side of the island, pointing toward Nick’s bottle.

“_Huh_? Oh yeah. Yeah, I was.” 

He took a drink of his beer tipping it back and gulping like it was the first water he had tasted since he had been found after being lost in the desert. _Two is definitely not enough_, he thought, as he opened the fridge and reached inside.


End file.
